In Ojibwe tradition, snow on the ground means it’s sacred storytelling season

Winter is storytelling season. Traditionally, snow must be on the ground for Ojibwe people to begin telling sacred stories.

MPR News’ Leah Lemm and Melissa Olson discuss the significance of the season with James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw, author of “The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings.” The conversation covers highlights of Vukelich’s book, the significance of winter stories and waiting to tell sacred stories in season, no matter when the snow decides to arrive.

During the discussion, they reflect on ancestral connection and historical novels, underlining the healing power of stories.

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the conversation below.

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‘The seven grandfather teachings’

Leah Lemm: Snow is on the ground, which means it’s storytelling season for many Native people. And today we’re exploring some of the history of the season for Ojibwe people and what stories we’ve been reading.

Boozhoo, I’m Leah Lemm, citizen of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and senior editor for Native News here at MPR News.

Melissa Olson: Boozhoo, I’m Melissa Olson, citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and reporter for Native News.

And we’re joined today by James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw. James is a speaker, digital creator, and author of “The Seven [Generations] and the Seven Grandfather Teachings.” Thank you for joining us, James.

James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw: Aho, boozhoo, miigwech. Boozhoo indinawemaaganidog. Aaniin, Kaagegaabaw indizhinikaaz. Mikinaak indoodem. Mikinaak wajiwing indoonjibaa. Besho Gakaabikaang indaa noongom.

And I introduced myself with a traditional Ojibwe protocol greeting. I said, “Hello, all of my relatives.” My name is James Vukelich. I’m also Kaagegaabaw. I’m Turtle Clan. I’m a descendant of the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. And I live close to Minneapolis today. And I want to say miigwech.

Lemm: Thank you. Well, congratulations on the release of your new book, “The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings.” We’ve both read it, Melissa and I, and it really sums up Ojibwe values and the connectedness of our communities and relatives.

And I have it right here in fact. James, can you give us an overview of the book?

Vukelich: I’d be delighted. The book really began with a talk I’ve been doing for maybe the past 11 years. Part one is about the seven generations. And this is a concept that shows up internationally in Indigenous country.

The idea that one’s actions has the potential to affect someone seven generations from now, as well as someone’s actions who you may be related to could influence the way you look and relate to the world. And how I point that out is a word that actually shows up in our language — indaanikoobijigan. It means my great-grandparent, my great-grandchild, but I present a spiritual interpretation of it as someone I’m inextricably interconnected to.

And if you look at that logically, it implies seven generations.

So, the first part of the book is about how our actions have the potential to affect someone that we may never see, speak to, listen to, or hold.

The second part of the book is the seven grandfather teachings, which are called the great law — Gichi-dibaakonigewinan.

And those are:

debwewin – truth

dabasendizowin – humility,

manaaji-idiwin – respect,

zaagi-idiwin – love,

zoongide'ewin - strength of heart, courage, bravery

gwayakwaadiziwin - virtue, righteousness, honesty

nibwaakaawin - intelligence, wisdom.

And how if we live our lives according to those grandfather teachings, according to those sacred laws, we live mino-bimaadiziwin. A life of peace, a life of balance — a life without conflict with our relatives or our ecosystem. A holistic life. And so that is one I have been delighted to speak about. And finally, it’s made its way to print.

Olson: You know, James, I really love that word that you point out [indaanikoobijigan]. I remember living in one northern community in which they use kind of a shorthand, indaako, for a great-grandparent. And that was always something that was really beautiful to see.

I wonder, what inspired you to write “The Seven Generations and The Seven Grandfather Teachings?”

Vukelich: To write it actually came from a promise I made to my father as he was getting ready to pass away. I had been dragging my feet about it. After grad school, I really began to dislike writing. It began to feel like labor. So, to speak about it, to really lean into the oral tradition, which is something that Anishinaabeg have had literally for thousands upon thousands of years, was something I enjoyed. But I had not taken the time to write it.

I’d found in school when I wrote about things that I really loved, they kind of lost their luster and allure. Yet my father made me promise that I would indeed write the book. And so, part of why I wanted to write the book was that.

And the other part was in today’s day and age, I may not have an opportunity to speak to all of the people I would like to. To have an opportunity to share these teachings, which have radically transformed my life. It made my life much better. To be able to do that with text in a book was probably the other inspiring reason to finish the text and to share it with the world.

Lemm: I try to remember our values both at home and at work. So, thank you so much for writing this. It’s been really helpful to reference even just in the past month during times that I’d need additional clarity.

And one of my favorites that I think is really telling, especially with journalism, is wisdom. And really bringing to light, bringing to light truths that are out there. So, I really found that to be particularly poignant when I was reading through — just the concept of what wisdom means in the language in Ojibwemowin.

Vukelich: Oh, I liked that too. And when I was writing that chapter, I found similarities, not just with Anishinaabeg people and their description of that, but worldwide. People from our ancient origins, I think, looked at intelligence and wisdom the same way. So, what was not just an exclusively Ojibwe point of view becomes a human one. And to have that opportunity to share that with people was really exciting for me.

Lemm: Yeah, a lot of this is so universal. So again, “The Seven Generations and the Seven Grandfather Teachings.” Very cool book, James. Thank you very much.

The winter storytelling season

Lemm: So, let’s dive into storytelling season, which is now. You can probably tell behind me — it’s very bright. That’s because of all the snow that’s out there. Can you talk a bit about the season and why we traditionally wait until the snow is on the ground to begin telling stories?

Vukelich: Oh, I’d be delighted. This is one of my favorite seasons because of this.

So there seems to be two main genres of storytelling. One is the dibaajimowin, and those are told in the late spring, summer and fall. And then there’s aadizookewin which are the sacred stories. These are the winter stories we were just discussing. And people will wait till lakes have frozen over, till the amphibians and reptiles are hibernating, as well as the bears, and there’s also a blanket of snow on the ground. And then they’ll begin speaking about the sacred stories.

Often these are told at this time of year because those spirits are thought to be sleeping and you wouldn’t want to be thought of as gossiping about them, speaking behind their back. So, you’re showing them respect.

And you begin speaking about how some of these animals, how some of these reptiles or amphibians or fish got their physical characteristics, how the earth and the land that is sleeping looks the way it does and the adventures of, and he has a number of different names for a number of different nations. The one I learned and used was Wenabozho. He’s also called Nanabush, Nanabozho.

In some northern communities, I think he’s called Wisakedjak, and Wisakedjakwa. And I think they’re speaking about the same fellow in all of these different nations. And kind of the episodes of his birth, the flood and the recreation of the earth, and then the creation of the world that we live in as modern human beings.

Olson: You know, James, the snow didn’t fall right away. The snow was maybe a little bit later in arriving. Were you sort of anxiously waiting for that opportunity to get to tell some of these stories? And now that it’s here, how are you feeling about that?

Vukelich: I was in fact waiting for it. The cultural prohibition is that if you tell stories out of season that a frog or a toad may jump into your bed and then, they can’t really bite you, but they can leave little bruises on you. And so, you’ll get red spots if you tell them out of season.

And so, I always try to be respectful both of the culture and of the spiritual tradition to tell those in season.

So, I was delighted when I was in Michigan earlier, or last week, the snow really began falling and I’m like, ah, it’s time. Mii zhigwa aadizookaayan. It’s time for us to begin telling these stories. And then I could do that again, without fear of waking up with red spots or bruises.

Olson: What stories do you like to visit? And what stories are you perhaps excited to visit with this winter?

Vukelich: It’s kind of been something where the stories are, they’re very episodic. So if you look at them, the Nanabozho stories in particular, the cultural trickster stories — and we use that term ‘trickster,’ for me, he’s more of our spiritual uncle — he gets into all sorts of hijinks and he kind of shows us how to not do things by example, as well as why we do some particular activities.

I like to begin at the beginning, at his birth. That was one of the first stories I read and understood in the language. I always like to begin there. And to kind of follow that first part, which I think is his birth, he begins living with the wolves, will become relatives with the wolves. The flood, the great flood, and then the recreation. And then after that, all of the episodes. Maybe I’ll jump into them randomly and see where they fall.

Spending time with Native books

‘A Council of Dolls’ by Mona Susan Power

Lemm: Great. Well, it’s been a short winter so far. I feel like there’s more time in the winter to really sit down with a book. There’s a bit less, you know, running around and getting outside and feeling like I can just get up and leave. So, in the winter, it feels so cozy, like it’s the perfect time to sit down with a good book in front of the fire.

And I read, I spent some time recently with the book “A Council of Dolls” by Mona Susan Power, which was a really lovely generational story. A Dakota family, and the book centers on mothers and daughters and their dolls. The concept is really simple, but at the same time, they’re navigating tumultuous times — land takeover, war, boarding schools and the process of growing up, which for some of us is also very difficult. And it’s a lovely book.

It was long listed for the National Book Award in 2023. So, “A Council of Dolls” was one that I sat down with and really enjoyed this winter.

Olson: Leah, I’m curious, given that it does touch on important topics. What effect did the book have on you?

Lemm: This is kind of why I try to wait till winter to really read these books and have that more reflective time. I think that’s kind of a universal feeling, you know, winter being very reflective. So, stories, almost no matter what the story is, have this unique way of connecting with the reader in whatever moment the reader is experiencing.

So, if I’m sad, if I’m happy, or anywhere in between, I may interpret that story differently for what I need at the time. And so, when I read “A Council of Dolls,” it was the turning over of the Gregorian calendar from 2023 into 2024. And I was feeling this need for connection.

When I read this book, the young girls’ connection with their dolls really spoke to me on this human level of needing to feel connection when otherwise they, we, might not have been feeling that. So, the effect the book had on me was this feeling of camaraderie with the young women in the story and how elemental it is to have that yearning for someone to talk to and share secrets with. So, it was a really lovely book.

How about you, Melissa? What have you recently read?

‘Plums or Nuts: Ojibwe Stories of Anishinaabe Humor’ by Larry Amik Smallwood and Michael Migizi Sullivan Sr.

Olson: Well, I was able to sit down with this book, “Plums or Nuts,” which I think Kaakegaabaw, you might — I see you nodding your head a little bit — you might have had a chance to spend some time with. I really enjoyed this book. First, it’s a moving tribute to a friend, a mentor, a language instructor and elder, Larry Amik Smallwood-oban,* by Michael Migizi Sullivan Sr., who was Smallwood’s student.

It’s a collection of stories in Ojibwe and English, relating stories from Amik-oban’s life in the communities that make up the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. And these are stories that are meant to be funny.

The title of the book comes from a moment towards the end of the book where Amik is entrusted with helping out with traditional Ojibwe funerals, a big responsibility, and responsible for rendering prayers in Ojibwe. And he talks about that he can’t remember the word for plums, which is a part of this prayer, the ceremonial prayer. He can’t remember if the word is ‘bagesaanag’ or ‘bagaanag,’ the word for nuts.

And it’s ... it’s that kind of humor. Moments like that point out how even one syllable can change the meaning of a word and it really matters. And ultimately how important it is to speak Ojibwe when learning the language.

Lemm: And how about the humor? So, the late Uncle Amik Smallwood.

I just gave it away. He was my uncle. And I remember him being so funny and reflective and serious and not serious all at the same time.

Olson: Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about what James said about the difference between the dibaajimowin and aadizookaan, right? So, these are really more of the dibaajimowin, the kind of anecdotal stories that relate events from a person’s life. And some of them touch upon really wonderful themes that are important to the community as a whole.

But if people want to laugh and get a sense of Ojibwe humor, these dibaajimowin, this book is a great start. And there’s a lot of love put into the craft of writing in Ojibwe and all the nuance of writing in this particular dialect from the community where Amik was from. And lots of time and attention into making sure that the English also comes through and that it sounds like Amik. So, it sounds really good in both languages.

Lemm: Great. And James, do you have any reflections you’d like to share?

Vukelich: Well, when I first heard the title of that, I thought that was really funny. Having studied the language, those words are so similar. Having not even read the story, I’m like, I can understand how you would get tripped up.

And again, that name, ‘bagaan,’ that's probably the origin for the word ‘pecan,’

So, when I heard that, I was like, ah, and I love the borrowing into the English language.

Yeah, this is totally reflective time for sitting down for reading. When I read some of these stories, I imagine our ancestors. Again, it’s been very cold, you would probably be inside, in a lodge with a fire. In a day in age without iPads, without internet, without Nintendo Switch.

How are you going to entertain these little Anishinaabensag, these little kids? You’re all together for 18 hours, usually when the sun sets till it rises in the morning. You’ll probably be in the lodge, and you have these stories. These stories that really make you reflect, that make you think.

And you also have the time to do that, which is, which is invaluable.

‘The Shining Mountains’ by Alix Christie

Vukelich: For me, I’ve been reading a book by actually, it turns out to be a cousin, “The Shining Mountains” by Alix Christie. And she wrote about my great-great-grandfather. It’s a historical novel about my great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother as they met one another and would ultimately settle in or become the oldest standing building in Montana, Fort Connah on the Flathead Indian Reservation. So, it’s been interesting to see someone else’s take on how these historical ancestors may have lived, to see dialogue, and to see how she interpreted that. That’s been a lot of fun.

Lemm: How do you feel reading that and knowing that it’s about your ancestors?

Vukelich: Again, it’s kind of like watching maybe a show or a historical drama or not quite a novella online, but they have a lot of back and forth and it’s very imaginative. Things I had not thought of like, oh, how would my great-great-grandmother who looked to be like a pretty no-nonsense woman deal with some of this Scotsman foibles as he’s trying to make his way and just survive? — in North America having come from Scotland in the early 1800s.

That part’s been really interesting. There’s tragedy as well. She was Nez Perce and had relatives, very close relatives who will go through the war in the 1870s that Chief Joseph is prominently figured in ancestors who will end up in Canada.

And so, it will go through that as well. I haven’t quite got to that part in the book. I’ve yet begun it. This is one of the first pieces of fiction I’ve read in maybe the past decade. The first part has been really exciting.

Lemm: And do you have reflections on that, on the book that apply to your life today?

Vukelich: You know, I was speaking about my great-great-grandparents and that word ‘indaanikoobijigan’ — to be inextricably interconnected to someone, to be inextricably linked to them. It's that word for my great-grandparent, my great-grandchild. And in one way, it’s interesting to see them as human beings, at least as they’re presented in the book. In your mind, they’re just an ancestor. You really haven’t had a chance to speak to them, to listen to them, to even see them. You see these pictures — it’s very one dimensional and two dimensional.

It reminds me that their example, their resilience, maybe their humor, their way of looking at the world has been passed down, regardless of if they wanted it or not.

When I was at Fort Connah in Montana, I realized that with my son that was seven generations. That was seven generations from when Angus was born to my son standing in this very old log cabin with the teepee looking across the shining mountains, the Rocky Mountains.

And it struck me that, what, how much has changed in that time? Yet the resilience, the fortitude, the strength of heart that had been passed down intergenerationally that I had a chance to show my son how his ancestor seven generations lived and to maybe kind of pass that down - that you too will have someone seven generations from now whose actions you have the opportunity to affect.

Lemm: And bringing this back to your book, James, one part that I dog-eared a little bit that popped out at me was where you [write], “I’m inextricably interconnected to them,” speaking about your ancestors. “I can still heal them. We are still writing our ancestor’ stories.”

And that to me just jumped out. Their story isn’t over. It carries on in us, the next generations.

Vukelich: Oh, indeed. Often when I speak about seven generations, we, and I’m guilty of this too, you know, I was trained and I learned in a linear fashion that, all right, it starts now and I’m looking forward into the future. And that’s very true.

Everything we do has that opportunity to make the world a better place for someone coming seven generations from now. Yet if we are inextricably interconnected, those people (who as it’s being demonstrated in this book) went to the worst of what colonization has to offer —dispossession, warfare, loss of family structure with the boarding school and residential school era, loss of language, suppression of traditional values.

We have an opportunity by celebrating these, by practicing in the culture, by living the language to heal, I believe, what they went through.

That we’re still connected to them. Some people will assume that someone who’s gone through such a pretty hard and at times horrible time would act a certain way. I see people in our generation and in the generations who are coming, our children, and maybe in some cases our grandchildren who are healing in such a way that it makes what our ancestors went through worth it. And it’s a testament to their survivance and to the excellent example that they shared with us.

Lemm: Wonderful. Chi-miigwech, James Vukelich Kaagegaabaw. How can we get through another winter? And it’s through stories and sharing and community. So, miigwech.

Olson: And rest. I hope that this winter is a restful one for you, James, and for you, Leah. Really hoping it’s a time of reflection and rejuvenation. I think that’s so much needed. Thank you, James. Thank you so much for joining us.

Vukelich: Well, miigwech bizindawiyeg. Thank you for listening. Miigwech agindaasoyeg, thank you so much for reading. And again, what a delight to have a chance to visit with old friends. Miigwech, thank you very much.

Editor’s note: *oban – referring to someone who has passed.